Tesla Roadster: Now Available for Lease!

For those of you who want to make an impact on reducing America’s consumption of foreign oil but want something a little more exciting than a Toyota Prius, Tesla has good news for you.

Leases of the Roadster are now available, according to the company’s website, for as little as $1,658 per month. Customers can either drive the car home from a dealer or delivery can be arranged within days, which means you very well could be driving to work Monday without using a drop of gas.

Not a bad deal for a car that costs $111,005 right?

Well read on, friends… the details are a bit of a buzzkill.

The 36-month lease requires a hefty down payment of $12,453. But hey, at least that includes the first month’s payment and an $895 acquisition fee.

By lease-end, you will have paid $70,483, not including taxes or the required disposition fee ($350.00) if the car isn’t purchased. Any excess wear and tear on the car results in extra fees too, along with 25 cents per mile charged for mileage over 30,000.

Or, leasees have the option to buy the car at the end of the lease for $45,603. Go that route, and end up paying a total of $116,086 for a car with an MSRP of $111,005.

John Walker, Tesla’s Vice President of Sales, said in the company’s press release,

We are committed to continuously improving and enhancing the Roadster, offering a leasing option means even more people can drive this exciting and groundbreaking car.

I don’t know about that. I suppose for those who want to live on the cutting edge of electric car technology and have $70K to burn over 3 years, sure. But if you’ve got that kind of cash, it makes a lot more sense to just buy your Roadster outright.

I don’t think the lease will get any more Roadsters on the road than any other marketing campaign would have, but I hope it does. The Roadster is an amazing car and if the lease option makes it so someone near me will come home with one, I’m all for it.

Do you think Tesla’s offer to lease the Roadster will result in more sales?

You can’t seriously be bagging Tesla for offering people a chance to get a loan for $111,005 over three years, and only pay $5,081 interest can you? That works out at about 1.5% interest per year, pretty good in my book.

I mean, even if you do have that kind on money to burn, I’m pretty sure you could find somewhere to invest $45,603 for three years and get back more than the $5,081 that this scheme will cost you.

I’m in Australia, the land of 6%+ housing rates and 15%-20%+ general interest rates. Maybe things work a little differently in the USA to here, but this just sounds wrong to me.